Jolt Your Career From Here to There: 8 Breakthrough Strategies for Career-Change Success

What are the best strategies to find work you love and do things that matter? In this provocative and useful book, Dr. Sunny Lurie offers exciting answers to some of the most basic challenges that define the new world of work. Immerse yourself in her ideas – and then put them to work for you!

––William C. Taylor, Co-Founder and Founding Editor, Fast Company

JOLT YOUR CAREER

FROM HERE TO THERE

8 Breakthrough Strategies for Career-Change Success

Sunny Klein Lurie, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2014 by Sunny Klein Lurie, Ph.D.

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Sunny K. Lurie: It’s your career—by decision or collision. Either you make a decision to plan for a career change or put it off and risk a collision … via merger, downsizing, or termination!

More than ever, in today’s marketplace, change closes doors as companies come and go or careers simply end. When it’s time to determine the next right career, we can either make a decision to open a new door or potentially fall victim to a career collision.

But opening a new door won’t happen by itself or with outdated job-seeking tactics. New opportunities rely on today’s powerful career-change approaches. And this is the Jolt Sunny Lurie delivers in her high-octane, 8-step strategy that provides the best chance to meet new career expectations.

Jolt Your Career reduces your fear of the unknown, identifies strengths and shifts mindset. Lurie’s Jolt widens possibilities and eases navigation through an unfamiliar marketplace to an ever-fulfilling career change. Readers will enhance self-confidence, acquiring the latest and most commanding resume tools, social media approaches and high-impact interviewing methods. Jolt is a life-changing encounter with yourself!

Sunny Lurie’s knock-out book is a must read for those wanting to take charge and gain clarity in building a new, satisfying, fulfilling work life … and because career change has become a survival skill, we need new rules and fresh ideas!

Emily Webster Love

Journalist/ former Copy Editor, USA Today

Sunny Klein Lurie, Ph.D., founder and CEO of FAST FOCUS CAREERS, boasts a rich background in organizational development and career management consulting. Working with Key Bank and private clients for two decades, Lurie’s proven techniques and breakthrough approaches help individuals make the right choice for the right career. She’s served on numerous boards, including the American Society for Training and Development and National Association of Women Business Owners. A prominent speaker, Lurie publishes broadly in business journals.

www.JoltYourCareer.com www.FastFocusCareers.com

Dedicated to: Ryan, Sara, Kenny, and my parents, Spencer and Elaine, for their love and unwavering belief in me.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART ONE: Take Charge of Change

Strategy 1: Think Like an Owner

Setting the Stage

Five Signs of Being Under-Employed

What Is an Owner’s Mindset?

Critical Workplace Developments

Rating My Competitive Advantage

Strategy 2: Navigate Career Change and Uncertainty Skillfully

Practical Tips for Change

Five Guiding Principles to Skillfully Navigate Career Change

Questions to Prepare for a Career Change

Changing Perspectives

PART TWO: Pinpoint Careers that Fit

Strategy 3: Discover You with Career Partners

Isolation Is the Enemy

Career Partners

Surround Yourself with People Who Want You to Succeed

How Do I Actually Find a Career Partner?

Topics to Discuss with Your Career Partner

Strategy 4: Widen Your Focus Beyond What Is Familiar

The Power of Strengths

Shifting Your Focus

Exercise 1: Uncover Your Strengths and Interests

Exercise 2: Intersections and Career Blends

Exercise 3: Ways to Do What You Enjoy

Exercise 4: Causes

Exercise 5: 360-Degree Feedback

Exercise 6: Whole-Brain Thinking

Exercise 7: Career Trends and Growing Fields

Exercise 8: The Big-Picture Finale

Exercise 9: Career Assessment

Strategy 5: Change Sideways with Targets

Establish a Target Goal

Create Your Mind Map

Create an Action Plan

How to Find Organizations to Consider

Organizing Your Career Database

PART THREE: Close the Deal

Strategy 6: Become a Master Connector or Adopt One

Master Connector Techniques

Finding the Right Connections

How to Ask for Help

Ways a Master Connector Can Help You

Networking Tips for Introverts and Everyone

LinkedIn

Job Searching on Twitter and Facebook

Job Searching with Other Online Resources

Prepare Questions for the Conversation

Strategy 7: Market Yourself with Leading Edge Résumé Tools and Social Media Savvy

Your Online Profile and Portfolio

QR Codes, Pocket Résumés, Career Apps

Today’s Top Methods for Finding Jobs

Short-Term Projects, Contract and Temp-to-Hire

Virtual Career Fairs

Virtual Work and Flex Jobs

Adult Internships

Creating Your Brand

Writing a Powerful Résumé

Matching Your Qualifications to the Job

Methods for Submitting Your Résumé

Writing a Strong Cover Letter

T-Letters and E-Notes

Strategy 8: Use Today’s Methods to Turn Interviews into Offers

Doing Smart Research

A Real Example of Passion

Appearance is a Whole Package

Secrets to Prepare for the Interview

Sample Interview Questions and Answers

Behavioral and Competency-Based Interviews

Sell Yourself with a Brief Story in Every Interview

Questions to Ask in an Interview

Follow-Up

Upgrading the Salary

Summary: Make It Happen

Acknowledgements

Appendix A: Blast Board

Appendix B: Action Plan

Appendix C: Fast Focus Careers Webinars

Jolt Your Career: Online Community Support

Introduction

In this book I’ve assembled everything I’ve researched, learned from clients, and experienced over 20 years working in the career industry: Navigating change. Becoming resilient. Gaining focus. Creating connections. Reinventing yourself. And most importantly, finding satisfying work.

I believe it is powerful and inspirational information—the kind that can give your career a jolt when you feel stuck and want more fulfillment. My years in this field have taught me that the capacity to have a meaningful career is not a gift magically bestowed only upon a fortunate few. It is a competency we can all learn and cultivate for ourselves; and one especially important since continual career change is everyone’s reality today. Sometimes it takes a jolt to generate new possibilities to open a new door and move your career from here to there!

Looking back on my path, shortly after my 20th birthday, I arrived at a pivotal point in my young life. It was time to declare my college major—a momentous task that would determine not only my field, but much of my life’s purpose. There was only one problem: I was wholly unprepared to make a rational decision or understand what I was even good at.

I was facing a crucial career moment without a clue. Worse yet, an earlier experience with a guidance counselor made me very hesitant to try it again. Eventually, I went to my career center at the University of Texas. Here I would complete a career test designed to take an inventory of my strengths and interests. I clung to a little hope that I’d soon be zeroing in on a profession.

Unfortunately, my hope faded when I found out that my scores in each of the six occupational interest categories were all the same: low. And speaking of low scores, all that my counselor presented to me was the obvious: my scores did not produce any high interest areas. "That’s why I’m here," I thought to myself. I need to find out what else there is.

The categories in the test carrying any potential for me were: Interior decorator, buyer, beautician, and physical education teacher.

But that was terrible news, because I didn’t want any of these vocations. I felt deeply discouraged that I apparently had no strong interests or good options. I thought, "Is that all they can do for me?"

Remarkably enough, that disappointing visit to the career center all those years back actually did help me find my future—or, more accurately, foretell my future. I believe it was that very dreadful day I began thinking: In my lifetime, I hope to somehow provide a solution to help other people through this daunting situation.

The book you’re reading is the culmination of those efforts; they didn’t come easily or quickly. It took me years to figure things out for myself and to be in a position to help others with their careers.

Over those years I learned the truth: An astonishing number of people don’t know how to successfully navigate the career process. We don’t want to settle for something unfulfilling, yet many of us don’t know what to do about it. Given all of this, finding the right career path is often a very confusing process. I know my career search felt that way. I remember believing I had potential for something, but without an obvious talent—singing, painting, or an interest in medicine or law—I didn’t have a ready-made answer.

I received my college degree and began my first ‘real job’ with Progressive Insurance Company. I started at the very bottom, as a ‘rater.’ Even though I knew little about management, I knew I didn’t want to stay at the entry-level. So I kept saying to everyone within hearing range: "I want to be a manager." I worked hard and it turned out the company had an unusually fast-paced environment. My ‘extraordinary’ performance rating led to two promotions in two years. As I progressed, I noticed that I liked the turmoil and chaos. Things were exciting.

Not as exciting as Europe, though, as my mid-20s wanderlust led me abroad. Reality soon led me back home, but my wider worldly experience left me no closer to an actual career. I began a series of random jobs, roaming aimlessly from waitress and fitness sales to retail. I was now approaching my 30s, and still I remained puzzled and unable to make a wise career decision. Should I move to L.A.? Go back to grad school? I felt isolated, and pessimistic about career centers.

But even without much thought for a suitable graduate program, I was dedicated to expanding my knowledge, eventually earning a master’s degree in post-secondary education. I was hired as a training and development specialist at Ameritrust Bank, in charge of employee development. Two major bank mergers proved hazardous to the Bank’s workforce—but I like to joke that I was nothing if not an expert in working through periods of turmoil and uncertainty—remaining employed with Key Bank for 12 years after the merger. Finally, I was finding my true field of interest: organizational change, and returned to school to earn a doctorate in organizational systems. At this point, my education felt more meaningful. For my dissertation, I researched the literature in change management, organizational behavior, chaos theory, career resilience, and factors around job performance and learning. My overriding professional interest became work satisfaction.

All the while I was also studying career development ideas, filling a huge four-inch binder full of interesting career articles. By the year 2000, it was time to put all my learning to greater use. I left the corporate world and started a consulting firm, helping employees and organizations improve performance. Six years later, I focused my full attention on blending my major areas of fascination—careers and change, and my company Fast Focus Careers was born.

Now I was home. Now I had found my passion. My primary job was now to help people take on the very saboteurs that had diverted my career: Indecision. Confusion. Discontentment. Isolation. Over the years I became obsessed with how people determined career choices and made successful changes. What obstacles had they faced? How did they find what they were naturally suited for? And what was it that made their career a happy, rewarding one? Many clients shared the same feelings I had at the University of Texas. But this time it was different. This time I could productively help others find—and follow—their strengths and interests.

Through the exercises in this book, you will be able to master the career change ‘competency.’ You can learn a practical step-by-step method with the latest tools for going about your reinvention. And remember, when I tell you what really works in the career field, it’s not only informed by extensive research uncovering the best practices, observing employees and leading people through the exercises, it’s also from a decade of skinning my own knees, and doing things wrong.

That’s why I have shared my early zig-zagging career journey: to let you know this book is certainly not just based on theoretical insights. This book is dedicated to overcoming the real-world obstacles to change and finding cutting-edge solutions that will leave you in a better position than when you began the journey. I wear my own mistakes almost as a badge of honor. To this day, I still show my actual college career test to the groups I speak to—now laminated with depressing scores and all.

But it’s no longer just a bad test. It is the document that sparked this journey. And that’s a good thing. Because now I am able to instruct— and I hope motivate you to Jolt Your Career toward a direction that‘s right for you, starting today!

Sunny Klein Lurie

The Career Doctor,

Chief Career Motivator

PART ONE

Take Charge of Change

.

The biggest mistake we could ever make in our lives is to think we work for anybody but ourselves.

—Brian Tracy

SETTING THE STAGE

What is the mindset of people who are able to consistently find employment and thrive despite challenges or powerful waves of instability in the economy? I have found it involves thinking like a successful business owner who takes control and becomes resilient enough to bounce back when chaos and change strike. This mindset is made up of behaviors and thoughts that can be learned and developed by anyone wanting fulfillment and purpose in their career. Business owners and entrepreneurs constantly strive to stay competitive in the marketplace. They carve their own path for success. We’ll take a good hard look at how an owner’s mindset can prepare you to make a successful and satisfying career move in a high-speed workplace.

Government statistics show average American employees can expect to have five separate careers in their lifetime. That is a considerable amount of change, and in many cases the result of a jolt—caused by their organization or by their own choice. When I speak with individuals who have either collided with change or decided they need a career adjustment, I hear some common themes. Often at the beginning of the conversation their thoughts are framed with an ‘employee’ mindset— unsure how to make a change, slow to take action, and reluctant to take a risk. Here are a few brief comments from recent clients during our first discussion. You may identify with them:

It’s confusing how to make a career change after many years (a manager, 44 years old).

I feel completely stuck professionally (a teacher, 36 years old).

My approach has been very random, I’m not getting anywhere. When I try to figure this out by myself I have a lot of negative thoughts (an attorney, 53, in the job for 23 years).

I’m feeling pretty depressed about my career and where to go next (a computer technician, 29 years old).

A big part of the work I tackle with my clients is adjusting their mindset. I see them move from an employee mentality of feeling it’s too difficult to take a risk, waiting for an opportunity to happen, or expecting the boss to step in with suggestions about what comes next—to standing up and taking initiative to jolt their own career forward. The mental shift allows them to achieve the mindset of an owner, filled with action, resilience, purpose, and a greater tolerance for risk. If you believe you should make a career change, stop feeling stuck or accepting under-employment—you have options!

Are you among the 72% of US workers who are not engaged in their work (Gallup; Blessing White, 2011), part of the 45 percent who are unhappily employed (Time Magazine, 2010), or among the 74% of Americans who are silently and passively looking for another job (Harris Interactive, 2011)? If so, read below:

FIVE SIGNS OF BEING UNDER-EMPLOYED OR UNFULFILLED IN YOUR WORK:

1. You are over-skilled and not working up to your full potential

2. You do not regularly use your strengths or talents in your work

3. You are not learning anything new or growing at work

4. You feel your work is not particularly interesting or meaningful

5. You need more work hours and greater challenges

FIVE SIGNS OF BEING SATISFIED AND WELL-SUITED FOR YOUR WORK:

1. You feel natural and confident in your work role

2. You routinely apply your strengths in your work

3. You are growing, working up to your potential, and often challenged

4. You are curious to learn new information in your line of work

5. You are enthusiastic and often lose all sense of time when doing your work

The first rule of shifting out of an old career and into a more meaningful one relates to mindset—your mindset. Let’s look at an owner’s mindset and how to apply it to launch a satisfying new career.

WHAT IS AN OWNER'S MINDSET?

No matter what’s going on in your company or in the economy, your career choices, your happiness, and your future are in your control. And it begins in your mind. Your actions are all initiated by you. So if you need to reinvent your career because you’ve reached a dead end, are close to losing your job or feel unfulfilled or unappreciated, here are some thoughts to get you started.

We live in a chaotic, rapidly changing work world where career success, like business success, is a moving target. The once-conventional ‘employee’ mindset approach to careers—where you wait for a promotion or let your manager determine your role in the company—is archaic thinking. The traditional employee-employer pact for long-term job security won’t work any longer and is behind us. With less job security and increasing change, managing your career as if you were an owner or independent contractor will help you succeed.

Owners and entrepreneurs believe in an ability to build and direct their own destiny. This mindset puts you in the driver’s seat. You permit yourself to have the power. You don’t hold off until others give you permission and allow you to achieve. High achievers do not drag their feet hoping for the right moment and the stars to be properly aligned. Owners and entrepreneurs don’t wait and wait—they initiate. They use stress, fear and other emotions to propel their businesses into action.

Do you have to be fearless to run your career as an owner? Not at all. Just as owners may have some prudent fear in running their business, you may have fear of failure and of wasting money, time, and energy. Fortunately, you can succeed with fear. So if your fear of not trying slightly outweighs the other factors, then that’s all you need to forge ahead. However, owners operating in a volatile economy must have a game plan that embraces change and promotes the development of survival skills to sustain their organization.

So much of managing our career relates to our mindset—our own personal thoughts and perceptions. You can change your views if you are clear about what you want to adjust. As you read through the descriptions below, see where your outlook is similar or different. Determine if there is an area you would like to modify to successfully change your own mindset.

These are some of the key elements of an owner’s mindset that contribute to career success:

Vision. Successful owners and entrepreneurs see the possible, even when the path ahead is unclear. According to Jonathan Swift, vision is the art of seeing the invisible. It is creating a plan or a strategy out of something that has not yet been seen. Having vision is being able to operate when things are abstract and fuzzy, taking specific steps to reach a goal you’ve set for your career. Vision leads owners to make improvements in their organizations and attempt to reach new heights; the fact that the unknown lies ahead doesn’t restrict them from taking action. It is the same process required for a career change when your future is invisible and uncertain—start with a small career target and identify explicit tasks to reach it. When we rethink our careers, we need to go beyond what we currently know and see. Envision the type of work you want to do and the industries and people you hope to work in and meet.

Initiative. Owners are aware that things could fall apart at any time, even when things seem to be going well. They understand they must consistently take initiative and look for ways to keep changing and growing. Business owners don’t have the luxury to ponder or procrastinate for long periods of time, because customers will respond by abandoning them. Complacency and extended delays in business are simply unsustainable. The same is true for careers. Being in limbo has a way of taking hold the longer we stay stuck. The longer we are in limbo, the more mental or financial pain we endure from not moving forward.

Do not settle. Successful owners carry a realistic expectation that they can work through adversity to prosper—they do not settle for mediocrity. They want more. We are all capable of expecting good things to happen in our lives. But that does not mean it will be easy. You have a huge say in your future. Too many of us become accustomed to living with the acceptable or settling for under-employment, believing it is somehow inevitable. Do not settle for being the person who says, My career is just okay. Do not envy folks who look forward to going to work—become that person! Don’t say, I always wanted to enjoy my career but I feel it has been quite dull. I wish it were more. This is such a common statement. Instead, expect success in your career and break the cycle of mediocrity.

Seek advice. Owners go out and seek advice from experts. Owners surround themselves with skilled people who advise them in making sound decisions and implementing solutions. Seek advice for your new career from business professionals, career experts, or peers who support you. Find good